


hunger makes me a modern girl

by TaffySinclair



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 23:41:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7821778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaffySinclair/pseuds/TaffySinclair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five ways Danny Lawrence doesn't cope with her new life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hunger makes me a modern girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rubyroth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubyroth/gifts).



1.

The world is saved, but there's nothing for Danny to celebrate.

The curse is just her cross to bear, an incurable disease that will last for eternity.

At night, sometimes, she imagines poor, sweet Kirsch, and the way his lips felt crushed against her own, and the way his flesh broke so easily beneath her teeth.

When she imagines that it's Laura's skin giving way instead, she takes up running at night and collapses into a dreamless sleep during the day.

On her evening runs, she passes the remaining Summers, the professors who are still standing, the ruins of her old life.  She runs until she's good and truly alone, until the blood beating in her ears is the only sound she can hear and the only sound she can ever remember hearing.

Then she begins the long, lonely walk back to campus.  
  
Where else can she go?  
  
2.  
  
She does a pretty good job of pretending to be well-adjusted for a while.

She pretends not to notice the way LaFontaine's become unmoored since losing both Perry and J.P., and the way Laura and Carmilla pretend to mourn the casualties but have the audacity to be _happy_ when no one else is around.  
  
She pretends not to notice the hunger that's devouring her from the inside, which is never sated.  
  
She pretends she's not constantly fighting the temptation to hunt and exsanguinate something alive, and ignoring the new, tiny voice whispering that she'd _like_ it if she'd only try it.  
  
Carmilla walks out of the bedroom, looking positively serene, and something inside Danny just snaps. The next thing she knows, her hand is wrapped around Carmilla's slender throat, pressing her against the wall, lifting her several inches off the floor.  
  
Carmilla makes a half-hearted attempt to struggle, but Danny's height and athleticism give her an advantage some might consider unfair.  
  
Danny leans in close. "You're the reason I'm a monster now. Everything I ever wanted is off the table. I barely even remember the plans I had for my life, but who cares? It's all out of reach now."  
  
Carmilla tries in vain to loosen Danny's grip. It would be so easy, so satisfying, to feel her bones crack.  
  
"You're the reason half my friends are dead, and the other half won't even look at me. Why should I spare you?"  
  
A hand squeezes her shoulder. Danny turns to see Laura behind her, and involuntarily releases Carmilla, who lands in an undignified heap. "Because you're not a monster. You're still you," Laura says.  
  
"I wish that were true," Danny says. "But I'm something else now, and it's not safe for you to be around me."  
  
"I don't believe that," Laura says firmly.  
  
Behind her, Carmilla says, "She's got a point. I can hold out a lot longer in a fight than you could, cupcake."  
  
"I would never hurt Laura," Danny hisses. "I lo--"  
  
Silence.  
  
"Everyone knows that," Carmilla says, rubbing her neck. "But it doesn't mean she's safe from the new you. Not until you get it under control."  
  
"I'll leave tonight," she says.  
  
She thinks she hears Laura say, "Danny, no," but she's already out the door.  
  
It was probably just her imagination, anyway.  
  
3.  
  
"What were you going to say before?" Laura closes the door behind her.  
  
Danny keeps packing as if she hasn't spoken.  
  
"If you're leaving for some undetermined amount of time, potentially forever, you should at least--"  
  
"I was saying that I wouldn't hurt you because I love you," she says, "but your girlfriend's right, it doesn't matter."  
  
"What if it matters to me?" Laura's close enough that Danny can hear her pulse. She swallows hard and tries not to imagine that pulse under her teeth.  
  
"I mean that it wouldn't stop me from hurting you. I could hurt anybody in the moment and not even realize it. I almost killed Carmilla, and I would have, if you hadn't--"  
  
"No, you wouldn't," Laura says. "I keep trying to tell you, this doesn't change who you are. I know you're still you. I mean, you still love me, so..."  
  
She can't argue with that.  
  
"I'm so sorry this happened to you. I know I'm responsible."  
  
Instead of arguing, she kisses Laura, and it's different from old times, the hunger intensifies and she fights the urge to bite down, just a little, just a taste.  
  
It's so distracting that she barely notices Laura is kissing her back.  
  
"Wait," Danny says, pulling away. "Don't do this because you pity me, and because I'm leaving. That just makes a mockery of my feelings for you."  
  
Laura looks a little dazed. "I'm not. I mean, I don't, I wouldn't."  
  
Danny looks at her. "Use your words."  
  
"I didn't kiss you back because I pity you, and I take your feelings seriously."  
  
"But you don't reciprocate them," Danny says. "And you already have one vampire girlfriend."  
  
"There's a limit?"  
  
"Don't," Danny says.

Laura kisses her again, and she allows it but reins herself in. "I'm not doing this because you're leaving," Laura says. "I'm doing it because I don't want you to go. Please. We'll figure out how to help you, and you're better off among friends than out on your own."  
  
"Sounds like pity to me," she says. "Also, I just strangled your girlfriend, so probably not a good idea to start pretending you could love me right this second."  
  
"A, Carm probably considered that foreplay, and B, maybe I do feel sorry for you, but--"  
  
"Okay," she says, going back to her suitcase. "You should really go. Like I said, I'll be out of your hair tonight."  
  
She waits until she hears the door close behind her to sink onto the bed and cry, but the tears won't come.  
  
In fact, what she feels is a very faint facsimile of sadness.  Easily suppressed.

Maybe this curse could be a blessing in that regard, at least.  
  
4.  
  
She drags her suitcase to the front door and sits on the couch to wait for sundown.  
  
"Laura said she tried to convince you to stay," Carmilla says, keeping a safe distance.  
  
"You could say that."  
  
"Leaving is a better idea."  
  
"Obviously, I agree." She gestures at her suitcase. "Sorry about before."  
  
"No, you're not," Carmilla says, not unkindly.  
  
"No, I'm not," she agrees. "Just seemed like the right thing to say."  
  
Carmilla sits beside her on the couch. "This is going to be a rough transition for you, but it doesn't have to be the end of the world. You have a long life ahead of you." She pauses. "Unless you keep making out with Laura, in which case I make no promises."  
  
"Sorry about that."  
  
"No, you're not."  
  
"No," she says, "I'm not. I just wish it had happened under different circumstances."  
  
Carmilla wraps a hand around the back of her neck and kisses her. She makes a muffled noise but doesn't fight it; the hunger rises again, but this time the force propelling her is matched by Carmilla's own. The old Danny would have been repulsed. The new Danny... isn't. Maybe like doesn't always repel like.  
  
When Carmilla releases her, she says, "I was just curious," by way of explanation. "Sorry."  
  
"I think it's time to go," she says.  
  
"When you've got things figured out and under control," Carmilla says with a studied disinterest, "you can come back here. If you want."  
  
"Tell Laura I said goodbye." She pauses. "For now."  
  
Later, she'll deem it a hallucination, but in the moment, she'd swear Carmilla smiles.  
  
5.  
  
She's barely walked fifty paces before she hears someone calling her name. She looks around, ready to defend herself from a Summer or Zeta with a grudge.  
  
LaFontaine emerges from the darkness, carrying a backpack and dragging a laptop bag on wheels.  
  
"Oh," she says, eyeing LaFontaine's luggage. "I'm leaving for a while."  
  
"I heard about what happened."  
  
"Which part?"  
  
LaFontaine mimes strangulation.  
  
"Yeah, not my finest moment."  
  
"I want to come with you," LaFontaine says. "I'll be your Renfield. Go out in the daytime, gather supplies..."  
  
"That's probably not a good idea," she says gently. "I'm leaving because I can't control myself. It's not safe to be around me."  
  
"That's why I'll make the ideal traveling companion," LaFontaine says.  
  
"I know you're upset about losing Perry and J.P., but--"  
  
"There's nothing for me here. Everything reminds me of what I've lost." LaFontaine's voice breaks. "I know you know what that's like."  
  
Danny can't argue with that.  
  
"And if you bite me in a moment of weakness, I promise not to hold it against you."  
  
"All right," she finally says. "Let's go."  
  
" _Yes, master_ ," LaFontaine rasps.  
  
"There will be none of that," she says firmly.  
  
"Mistress, maybe?"  
  
She wrinkles her nose. "I think people would get the wrong idea."  
  
LaFontaine waggles their eyebrows suggestively, and Danny laughs, really _laughs_ , for the first time in ages.  
  
Maybe this isn't such a bad idea after all. 


End file.
